08/29/2010

Ellis Island Name Changes

I went huh? a couple times this weekend over the same post. Not actually the post itself, but the description of the post. On one weekly genealogy blog roundup I read "Schelly Talalay Dardashti at Tracing the Tribe catches the New York Times perpetuating the myth of names being changed at Ellis Island, and wonders when this myth will finally be put to rest." On another it said, " Ellis Island: A rose by any other name... by Schelly Talalay Dardashti on the Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog. This is an important post for everyone working with immigration records - Schelly takes the New York Times to task for publicizing the myth that names were transliterated at Ellis Island." The post about which they are speaking is here.

My great-grandfather went through a name change as an immigrant. So, the myth is that the officials at Ellis Island (or any other official) changed the name for immigrants. However, many immigrants changed their own names. That wasn't clear from the descriptions. I still have the original birth certificate (now falling apart) of that great-grandfather on which his name is clearly given as: Pavel Chodur anovy oh Dolinsky. This is the classic Slovak double name. Pavel's mother had one too. She was Anna Valuch-Malarik.

The question is who made the decision and when to shorten his name to Pavel Dolinsky (the descriptor) from Pavel Chodur (the actual surname). It was Pavel's great-grandfather who adopted the double name as Jan Chodur-Dolinsky (born in 1799). His father was Adam Chodur b. 1770, son of another Pavel. Luckily I always knew this, because Pavel daughter, my grandmother, often told me that Dolinsky wasn't even their real name. So this is a nuanced myth-busting. Immigrants changed their names on their own, officials didn't do it for them. Got it. However, how many immigrants were cajoled into changing their names by the derision or ignorance of same said officials? Harder question to answer. Suffice it to say that non-Anglo immigrants have found it easier to change their names. Although my great-grandfather probably consented to the name change after a while, he couldn't have instituted it because he would have chosen Chodur over Dolinsky. (that is, the surname over the descriptor of the surname). Dolinsky happened because it came last in the name.

I've never looked for it, but now I would like to see his citizenship papers. I remember my grandmother telling me that she and her siblings helped him study for it. I can see by the U.S. censuses that it happened between 1920 and 1930. I'd like to see how he handled his name. Starting in 1910, the name on the census is always a variant of Dolinsky. He called himself Dolinsky in his 1903 marriage license in Pennsylvania. However, in the 1900 census he is clearly Paul Hodur. I don't wish to disagree with the poster, but how much of that is myth or not, I still question.

4 Comments

I don't look at it as a nuanced difference, as a surname that is forced upon someone by officials is very different from a surname someone chooses. The 'myth' is that changes were forced upon our ancestors at Ellis Island.

(And Schelly's article does state that many immigrants changed their own name: "there was nothing to prevent an immigrant from changing a surname the minute they set foot in the city." And, referring to the NYTimes article, "Other than perpetuating this myth, the story - 'New Life in America No Longer Means a New Name' - is excellent as it addresses name changing by immigrants and the reasons why.")

Family Historians who care about the motivations behind their ancestral decisions need to be dispelled of the myth that their ancestors preferred their original surnames but were forced to make a change. It's actually likely that they chose the new name because they *wanted* their surname to sound 'American' out of pride in their new country. Or at the very least, they wanted to fit in.

If one isn't a Family Historian, but only a genealogist, then the motivations are irrelevant. The name change is irrelevant beyond tracking the generations.

Thats true, but in my example, I still cant understand why if he indeed changed his name, he took the part of the name that wasnt a surname but was the descriptor. Certainly, neither Chodur (pronounced with a hard CH like in lchaim) nor Dolinsky sound American. So I get that the officials at Ellis Island didnt change it, but did some other official change it or certainly strongly suggest that he should? True, this is entirely academic, because I know his parents. It was interesting that it seems highly apologetic for the xenophobia that did happen.

I am curious about the basis for " This is the classic Slovak double name." I have a female ancestor in Slovakia with a hyphenated name and have been searching for the reason and meaning. Several years ago I asked Eastern European researchers at a Salt Lake City FEEFHS conference and a researcher I hired in Slovakia. There was no mention that this is a classic example. However they did allude to a descriptor, i.e. hyphen equaled of the house of 'name'. So I would be interested to know was there a particular time frame, geographic area or ethnic group that used double surnames. My particular ancestor is Rusyn ethnicity and from Saris region.

It is my understanding that the double names or hyphenated names is a way of distinguishing people of the same surname in a village from each other. One branch takes on some descriptor and hyphenates the name. According to my grandmother the Chodur-Dolinsky name was derived from the Slovak word for valley (doline or udoline) . So it literally means the Chodurs who lived in the Valley. However see this website: http://www.tccweb.org/wherebegin.htm. Also, I dont know how pervasive it was. This line that used it were all in Vrbovce in western Slovakia, all protestants. My other lines from the neighboring western villages of Tura Luka, Sobotiste, and Myjava, didnt use them.